A "journey" involving running in place in the deep end. Quite possibly I've gone off the deep end.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Training log - Week ending 10/14/12

This week was 77 miles of “real running” and 16 “miles” pool
running, no swimming breathing drills -- training log is here.

The first half of this week was focused on recovery from my
half-marathon, which I actually bounced back pretty quickly from – I’ll give equal
credit to the fact that the course was flat and that higher weekly mileage
makes for a quick recovery.I also used the first part of this week to do
a three day (Sunday-Tuesday) course of antibiotics to try to finally kick the bug I’ve been
fighting for forever.Essentially, the
opinion of my ENT was that I’ve got a mild but persistent sinus infection, and
it wasn’t going to clear without the drugs.I hate antibiotics, but they’re a necessary evil in cases like
this.And this has gone on for well over
a month.

So did the drugs, recovered from the race, and returned to
training, with a focus now towards my marathon – this is my peak training time
before taper.Of course, I still have no
idea what to target for for my marathon goal time.My half last weekend was run in conditions
that make it pretty much useless as a predictor (unless Philly’s like that….please
no).My workouts and shorter races point
at certain times, but I know better than to use that.

So, proposed 3:10 as a goal time to my coach, the idea being
that it’s a conservative but not totally sandbagging time.And I do want to be conservative, since a) it’s
my first marathon and b) between the darn sinus infection and insane work
demands, I haven’t had the best training fall.And we decided that I could go out pacing for that time, and then
re-evaluate after the half-way point whether it was too conservative and I
needed to up.

Thus, I ran my long run this weekend trying to lock in 7:15
as my marathon pace, and it just felt wrong – way too easy (famous last words,
perhaps?I hope not). In the end, I ended up running quicker, and
still finished my long run feeling like I could have run another 5 miles at a
faster pace without much issue.

While having MP feel really easy is a nice problem to have,
it’s making me think that perhaps the MP I’m locking in is overly conservative
and sandbagging.Hmm.I’ll wait a few days, and see how I feel
after this long run, and then discuss with coach.And far better to run these final long runs on the slow side then to practice an overambitious “MP” that I have little hope
of actually sustaining on race day (and dig myself into a hole while doing so).

Dailies

Monday:In the morning, 75
minutes of easy pool-running for “7.5 miles”. 2 very easy miles (8:33 pace) and foam rolling
at night.

Tuesday:In the morning, 10 miles
very easy (8:33 pace), followed by upper body strengthwork and injury
prevention work. Foam rolling at night.

Wednesday:In the morning, 11.5
miles easy (8:23) followed by yoga.Later did another 3.5 miles easy (7:54
pace).Foam rolling at night.

Friday:In the morning, 13.5
miles, including an 8K tempo in 32:09 (6:28 pace, split as 6:33, 6:29, 6:27, 6:22,
and 6:15) followed by injury prevention work and 20 minutes of easy
pool-running.Pilates and foam rolling
in the afternoon.

Sunday:In the morning, a long run of 21.5 miles, split as 7:56 for
first 8 miles, 7:19 for next 5.5, 7:08 for last 8 (7:29 average pace).Followed with injury prevention work and 30
minutes of easy pool-running.Foam
rolling at night.

Even though I've done several marathons, finding that just right marathon pace is still a real challenge. Of course, I am also that person who one too many times has thought "this pace is great, I could do this forever" early in races of various distances, just to crash and burn a few miles later. In my opinion it never hurts to be on the conservative side during the first half. Better to have a sizeable negative split and know you can improve next time than to really suffer in the second half.

Full slew of race reports here (from my first in June 2007 to 2010) and here (2011).

workouts

(you can click on the link to see the details)

Pool running conversion

I convert my pool-running into “mileage” with this formula:

1)10 minutes “easy” in the pool equals one mile

2)workouts translate by time into mileage, with the recoveries not counting for mileage.For example, I would normally cover half a mile in 3:00 during an interval workout, and 1.5 miles in 10:00 during a tempo.So 8x3:00 at interval effort is 4 miles, and 10 minutes at tempo effort is 1.5 miles.